Stacksteadsareas

Lee Mill & Toll Bar

Blackwood & Brandwood

Atherton Holme

Hare & Hounds

Grocers Arms

Dog & Partridge

" The Place Of The Stag"

The area known as Stacksteads stretches from the Thrutch Gorge just East of Waterfoot to a mile before Bacup. The name is thought to mean the place of the Stag or stack. At the time of Queen Victoria's coronation Stacksteads was just a village without one place of worship available. In 1876 the district of Bacup was extended to include Stacksteads.

Stacksteads Railway Station

A newspaper report of 1869 paints a very bad picture of Stacksteads describing it as "not a very safe or pleasant place to live". At this time the population of Stacksteads was made up mainly of what at the time were called " low Irish families" described as far from peace-loving and law-abiding. As a consequence the well disposed inhabitants of Stacksteads were in fear of their life's. The report of 24th April 1869 describes how on Sunday the 18th April a number of these savages called at a farmhouse in the neighbourhood and asked to be supplied with a quart of milk. The good woman brought them the milk, but before she handed it over to them asked who was to pay for it. The answer was to have the jug wrenched from her hands the milk consumed and the jug thrown to the floor and smashed. Their path next lay through some fields where they passed a young man returning from Sunday school , and as they passed him

they tripped him up, causing him to fall heavily on the ground. A little further they met another man who was also returning from a place of worship, and whom they attempted to molest in a similar way. Failing to trip him up they struck him in the face. This assault however was witnessed by Mr James Munn J.P and Mr Robert Munn J.R who remonstrated with the blackguards. No sooner did he interfere but was knocked down. Mr Robert Munn was also assaulted but this did not stop him capturing one of his cowardly assailants. He was brought before the Magistrate and sentenced to a month in the house of correction for a month. The men, it is stated were all in liquor at the time.

Today the only thing left of the old Fernhill House and it's grounds is the gate house. Fernhill housing estate now stands on the land that was one a great house and Military hospital during the Great War of 1914-1919. The house was demolished in 1920 and the area developed as the Fernhill estate. Heath Hill House was home to the Munn family, built between 1834 and 1838. It is said that the favourite pastime of the Munn family was hunting and shooting of which they did a lot of, on the moors surrounding their home which included the fields of Folly Clough known today as Booth Road. Another of the oldest inhabited parts of the forest of Rossendale was the area known as Brandwood. Lying between Tunstead and Cowpe some of the earliest residents of the Brandwood area came from the village of Ashworth near Rochdale. Like Bacup, Stacksteads had its own share of pubs and beer houses many of them frequented by the Brownback's who worked in the local quarries. Frequently pubs were used to hold inquests for accidents and deaths that had occurred in the quarry and the one that seems to have been used the most for this was the Commercial. It is however described in 1869 as having a very low company of customer, mainly Irish labourers and navvies, one policeman of the time descibed being in the tap room surrounded by at least ten drunk Irish navvies.

John Baxter's began building his brewery at Glen Top between in 1850 in 1895 when the son of the family disposed of it as a family concerned it owned the majority of the pubs in Rossendale and the surrounding areas. The buildings on the Cowpe side of the road now the home to a metal structure were closed when brewing ceased locally in 1967-1968. Those on the other side of the road now a pine furniture shop were closed in the very late 60's. The chimney was demolished in August 1972. Another brewery in the area was started in 1850 this was known as Brandwood Brewery it ceased business in 1896.

Oddfellows Arms Lee Mill

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